“Where am I? Leta! What have you done?!”
Though I called and called for her attention, she did not answer me. I moved towards the door, touched it, and watched it give way as the gateway to any room I might leave or enter always did.
Out in the hall, candles lit my way to another place, and within that room I found breakfast, laid out as it always was, just in a slightly different room. I stepped back out into the hallway, looking up and down, left and right. I wondered if I might be on a different level of the house, in the opposite wing perhaps, but there was no-one to tell me and therefore nothing I could do about it.
“I shall eat,” I decided eventually, “and then I shall investigate.”
No sooner was I seated at the table than Leta’s voice came to me like a song.
“You shall not,” she told me, with no malice to her tone. “You promised to abide by the rules, Beau. You shall not look for me. To seek out your old room is to try to find me. The rules,” she said insistently.
I allowed myself a moment’s thought before answering her.
“Very well.” I nodded once. “I shall abide by the rules as I have sworn it,” I promised. “But one day, Leta, I shall know you. Let that be another promise I make to you and uphold.”
She was quiet a long time and then finally she said;
“You already know me, Beau. Better than anyone ever has in my whole life.”
Chapter 5
Things changed from that day forward. In many ways, Leta and I went on as we had for weeks and months before, talking about books and telling tales of days gone by, but it was different too. I adjusted to her voice being less clear than in my previous room, I relearned her every tone and longed always to make her laugh. The only thing I yearned for more than this was to see her face, but I kept my promise and never did try to look for her in any way. Still, things were different. I felt different.
I failed to keep my curiosity completely in check. If Leta ever dared to give me some detail from her past, it was impossible for me not to ask for more. In apparent innocence, I asked my questions, inched a little closer to the truth of who or what she truly was or had been. Leta was my puzzle to solve, an enigma to unwrap and fully discover, though she was the most elusive creature I had ever come across in the whole course of my life.
“A most interesting tale to be sure,” I said of the latest book I had selected from the great library. “Invented identities, fabricated stories, even false names that meant that much more than they seemed on the surface. Yes, indeed, it is quite a tale,” I repeated, eyes always on the pages before me, though I saw nothing of them.
Leta was silent a long time. I no longer had any direction to look into when I spoke to her, so she could take no offence that my eyes were averted when speaking with her. There was no mirror in my new room, no clue as to how her voice came to me, but come it eventually did.
“You seem quite enamoured with such a tale of lies.”
“And you wonder at it,” I said, trying my very best not to smile as much as I truly wished to. “Come, Leta, you can guess precisely why this book intrigues me.”
“I am sure I have no idea, Beau,” she told me, every word a lie, as we were both well aware. “You have secrets yourself, I suppose.”
“None that I have kept from you, dear Leta,” I promised her truthfully. “Every word from my lips has been the absolute truth, for as long as I have known you. It is a shame, I suppose, that you do not feel able to be as honest with me.”
“I tell you no lies, Beau,” she insisted, clearly affronted, as I had intended.
It was certainly ungentlemanly of me, of that I was well aware, but she had not exactly behaved like a lady for as long as I had known her. Perhaps it was presumptuous of me to even assume that Leta was female or human at all. The castle was enchanted, that much was more than clear. There might well be reason to believe that Leta was no more a person than the candles that lit my way or whatever spirit opened every door I wished to pass through. Were she merely a spirit, an apparition or similar, then I was quite wasting my time in trying to know her better, to even consider courting her as a gentleman might woo a lady.
One fact remained, however. Leta’s rules, from the very beginning, had included that I never try to find her. To me, that meant she existed within the castle walls, in some form that I could at least look upon. It seemed unlikely she had no substance to her being at all, though I suppose in hindsight, it might have been true. One thing was for certain, I would not give up until, somehow, I had unravelled the mystery of my sweet Leta, even if it meant at least bending the rules she had set for me.
“You tell me no lies,” I said, nodding my head, “and yet I cannot believe the name that you gave me is truly your own. I am not a fool, Leta. I was taught a great many things as a young scholar. Among them, a number of languages.”
She must have known to what I was referring, though it went unstated. I would not give her the pleasure of saying more. I would wait for her response, and it did not take a great deal of time before it came to me.
“Names have meanings,” she said bluntly. “This does not make them untrue. Your name means that you ought to be handsome, and so you are.”
Those words certainly drew my attention away from the original topic of our conversation. Leta was kind, generous, and friendly with me, almost all of the time, but she had not given compliments such as this before. She had also revealed to me that she did indeed see me and watch over me this whole time of our knowing each other. Though the days and weeks meant little to me since my arrival at the castle, I was aware I had been there some time, perhaps even as much as six months. She knew me, saw my face, heard my voice. It was one advantage she had over me, for though I heard a version of her voice, I had yet to know her face, look into her eyes, embrace her in my arms.
“You trifle with me, Leta, and it is most cruel,” I told her, eyes closed against the empty space that surrounded me. “You tell me now that you see me, all that I am and all that I do, and yet... and yet still you deny me the same chance. Why must you hide from me?”
“The rules, Beau,” she reminded him, sounding almost as tearful as angry in that moment.
The realisation of it quite startled me, even more so than her confession that she found me handsome. Anger came quickly to Leta’s tone when she was tried, but never had I really known her to seem sad, desperate, genuinely emotional in that kind of way.
“Hang the rules, Leta!” I cried, tossing the book aside as I rose to my feet. “You make these rules and so you may break them if you will! I may break them, and I declare you unable to stop me!”
“You know that I can. That I will,” she insisted, growing hard and angry in a moment.
My hand went absently to my face, the memory of the last time I broke her rules etched firmly in my mind. The shocking welt upon my head had taken days to properly fade, and though I had wondered at the time if Leta had delivered the blow that injured me, I had long since decided it could not be true. Now she gave me pause for thought.
“So soon after telling me that you do not lie,” I said, as amused as I was furious by now. “You are a conundrum of the highest order, my dearest hidden one, but you are not the Almighty. I refuse to fear you. I refuse to believe in the violence you seem determined to own.”
“You do not know me!” she boomed, just like the monster she had first portrayed the day I arrived at the castle door.
“You think to frighten me? It shall not be borne!”
“You can be afraid,” she reminded me cruelly. “You ran to this castle in fear and panic.”
“I ran from a life I could not endure, from the breaking of my heart and the crushing of my soul! Of all the people in the world, I wonder that you cannot understand such a fate!”
“You assume too much! You speak to me as if you have knowledge of my life, of who and what I am. Beau, you are a fool!”
“A fool I may be, but a coward I am not, Leta,” I countered, a
nger rising with my voice as I shouted back at her with as much volume as I could muster. “You can hide your face and form from me, but I know your heart. I know you, Leta, and I... I love you!”
The laughter I so longed for on any other occasion was poison to my ears in such a moment. There was no joy in her tone, no pleasant peal of bells nor melodic quality. There was pain and anguish in every note. A deliberate cruelty too. It was enough to knock the breath from my body and fill my head and heart with pain.
“You speak of love, and yet you know nothing,” she told me, every word spat like venom in my face. “The judgements I have heard from your own lips, of the woman from whom you ran.”
“She is an unspeakable creature, I do not deny,” I countered. “I spoke no untruth of that beastly woman.”
“You judge her, and then beg to be granted the chance to see my face.”
My mouth was open in readiness to answer her accusations, and yet no words came to the fore in the beginning.
The things Leta had said were perfectly true, I had made certain judgements of Miss. Trevelyan, but I was not ashamed of my opinions there. I knew the young lady in question, and a lady she most certainly was not. I made no quick study nor took heed of gossip and rumour. She had told me a great many facts of herself and opinions of others that I could not stand. She had appetites and depravities that I could not bear, which caused any beauty in her looks to become hideously ugly in a moment. I did not judge her harshly on what I presumed her to be, I spoke of facts and truths. Still, Leta would use my negative opinions against me. She believed that if I knew her better I would judge her just as harshly. I knew it could not be true, but how to have her believe it?
“Darling Leta, are you not now making your own judgements upon myself?” I asked her. “By not allowing me the chance to truly know you, you presume too much. You make assumptions upon how I might react. I already know that I am undone. I am in love with your spirit, your mind, your heart, your voice. Am I never to be granted the gift of knowing the rest of you?”
The silence that followed ought to be answer enough to my question, and yet I refused to give up hope. Long after I was sure that she would not reply, I waited, just to be sure. When at last I called her name again and heard not a single sound in response, I was sure she did not even listen anymore.
“Very well,” I said at length. “I suppose I have given you food for thought. In such cases as these, it would perhaps be kinder to leave you alone, at least for the moment.”
I had barely made it to the door before I was certain I heard her voice again. It was nothing if not an apology, and yet there was every chance I had imagined ‘I am sorry, Beau,’ in a simple breeze passing down the corridor.
With a defeated sigh, I took myself down the stairs and out into the strange light of the gardens surrounding the castle. The beauty of the flowers and plants in sight and scent usually never failed to cheer me before, and yet today, they might as well have been withered, colourless, and devoid of all life.
As I told Leta before, I had run from a life that was bound to break my heart and crush my soul. In this moment, I felt that both had happened in an instant of each other, and here in my beloved sanctuary and home.
The truth that I had spoken remained unchanged. I had fallen in love with Leta, though I knew her not in any physical sense. For us, it seemed unnecessary. We knew each other in ways far beyond simply seeing each other’s face, though it was more than clear to me now that she saw me, even as she hid herself away.
I wondered so many things about her. How long she had been in that castle. What kept her there and hidden from sight. How she came to be in the first place. I yet assumed she was a woman, but I had no evidence to suggest it. I knew so little of who or what she really was and fought to recall any clues, any minor detail of information I had gleaned that might tell me more.
Out in the gardens, as I wandered freely, my feet took me to my intended location without my ever really giving it conscious thought. The fountain loomed large before me, still such an obscure shape and hidden under much age and damage that it was impossible to identify as any particular form. No water flowed from it, just as before, and yet a crystal-clear pool remained at its base, holding the precious lily that I knew better than to approach this time.
The magic here, the enchantment, whatever kept Leta from me, it all came back to this place, this fountain, this flower. I began to wonder how it worked, what power was borne from this place, and in what way whatever spell was here might be broken. It would take a great deal of thought to unravel such a mystery, if I was even capable of such a feat, but I was not granted the chance to try.
Something stirred in me, the most overpowering feeling of darkness and dread. Back at the stable, I heard Goliath start, rearing in his stall and all but screaming for attention. I turned to head back, only to find he had broken free and come cantering to my side.
“What is it, boy?” I asked him, patting him gently and trying to calm him. “Whatever is the matter?”
He could not tell me and I no longer needed the reply anyone might have given to my question. A great thundering of hooves was to be heard beyond the castle gates, the cries of battle, the clattering of swords and armour both.
“Good God!”
Swinging up onto Goliath’s back, I rode back to the castle proper, so fast I would have sworn we flew. Arriving at the door, I encouraged my good steed into his stall, then hurried on into the castle myself, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Leta!” I called for her at every turn. “Leta, in God’s name, what is happening?!”
Her voice, when it answered me, was surprisingly calm and serene.
“I believe, Beau, that we are about to be under attack.”
Chapter 6
I know not how they found me, or why they sought to try, but it became evident as the hoards descended on the castle gates that the raiding party was led by my father and, of all ungodly creatures, Ms Trevelyan.
Though it ought to have occurred to all parties concerned that my escape was by design, I can only assume that they thought me lost and captured by some evil beast that dwelled within the castle walls. How wrong they were, something I was quite ready to tell them all, and yet I was prevented from doing so.
The moment I returned to the castle to hear Leta’s talk of imminent attack, the main doors closed behind me with an almighty clang and would not open again to my touch as they always had before.
“What is this?!” I cried, running to the next nearest exit and trying as best I could to open it.
Though no locks were present and no boards barred the way, with all the effort in the world I could not prise open that door, nor any other in the building. I resorted to windows and yet suffered the same fate, only serving to injure my hands rather than find a route of escape.
“You sought sanctuary here, Beau,” said Leta from whatever source her voice might come in that particular part of the castle. “Now when the charge comes, you seek to run toward the fray.”
“To save you, foolish Leta!” I cried back. “Do you not see what the result of this battle will be? They wish to take me away from here, but in doing so will likely destroy everything in their path. Your home, your enchanted surroundings, your very world shall come crumbling down in the heat of their wrath.”
“You are worth so much to them, and yet you ran.”
“It is not I that have value in their eyes, but what I represent. You know this, Leta, for I have told you all in my time here. It is a great deal more than you yourself have revealed!”
I did not mean to be so cruel, so ungrateful and unpleasant, but in such a moment it seemed I had lost control of my senses. All of an hour before, I had declared my love to this impossible, mysterious creature, only to be mocked and ridiculed for my words and feelings both. Now came an assault upon our happy world, the return of a father who I believed could not care for me and a woman who wanted me only for a prize and a trophy. The situation was suc
h that I had no notion how to proceed, and unfortunately, took out all of my frustrations on the one person present to hear me.
“My father would take me back into his household to punish me at best, and hand me over to Miss. Trevelyan for the sake of money and power at worst. She wants only the pleasure of knowing she has won the prize, and no doubt savours the thought of killing in my name. Neither of them means to be heroic or a saviour of some kind, but to behave as monsters, as slavers, as... as beasts!”
The laughter came again, cackling and maniacal, worse even than that which I heard when I declared my true feelings for Leta. It seemed as if she had quite lost her mind in those few dreadful moments, and yet I loved her still. I wished only for our lives to be returned to what they were a day before. I realised then that they might never be again, no matter the outcome of today’s events.
“Then let your beasts come,” she said, suddenly calm, or so it seemed to me, “and we shall see who most deserves you.”
I knew not what precisely she meant by those words and hadn’t the chance to ask. Something came over me, a darkness, a calmness. I hadn’t an idea how to describe it then and still struggle now to find the words. I imagine it was similar to when a woman swoons, though I would not wish to say that I had done such a thing. Still, my legs seemed to go from under me and the world grew hazy. I moved as if through a dream, floating above the ground that shook with the sound of pounding hooves and boots alike.
The crashing of intruders at the door was louder than anything I ever heard before in my life, as thunder and hellfire seemed to rain down upon us. I may have called for Leta, but my voice seemed strangled to my own ears, and in any case, I was not aware of her reply. Somehow, I seemed to reach my bed chamber, though how, I could never explain.
In the hallway, a shadow passed by me, a feeling like the touch of the gentlest hand at my cheek as I moved along. Weakly, I heard my own voice say her name, and yet I could not swear it was Leta who spared me a moment’s pause.
Fairytales Reimagined, Volume I Page 10